e - A d v e n t u r e

Trust is a key aspect for an organisation to have, if a customer has trust in an organisation, they are more likely to buy products from them, and tell friends that the company is good and can be trusted, thus resulting in the companies reputation increasing. “Social scientists from across fields have theoretically and empirically shown the positive effects of trust. For instance, trust has been associated with institutional efficiency and economic growth ([Putnam et al., 1993], [La Porta et al., 1997] and [Zak and Knack, 2001]). But in order to be profitable, trust has to be rewarded. According to Tullberg (2008), the degree of trustworthiness is the central factor for whether trust increases or decreases.” (Bonein, A, Serra, D(2009) : Gender pairing bias in trustworthiness). However trust have been defined by Mayer et al as the willingness to be venerable to the actions of another party with the expectation that the party performs an action which is important to the person. However this view of trust gives room for critism because the willingness to take a risk for something that is important to a person does not always means trust. This risk could be a result of variety of reasons. E.g. A customer goes to a shop for the first time and when is time to pay, they ask for her bank details, she gives it because that is what everyone is doing not because she is willing to take the risk.

However, Trust worthiness is concerned with the perception of customers towards a company and its employees in the process of service delivery. Trustworthiness directly examines the processes linked with the service delivery of employees and the evaluation of management practices. The conceptual foundations of trustworthiness are based on three parallel elements.
1. Operational competence: Has to do with the ability of employees and management in executing the service. Its takes into accounts expertise and knowledge shown by employees during service delivery.

2. Operational benevolence: Pertains to the service provider’s ability to place the consumer interest first above that of the company, through employee reaction or company policies.

3. Problem solving orientation: has to do with the ability of service provider to anticipate and resolve consumer problems during and after service exchange.

This shows the importance of trust an organisation possesses, as it leads to positive affects, and trustworthiness follows on from trust, if you can trust a company, they then build up trustworthiness over time, trustworthiness is one of the most important aspects for a company to have from its customers. The level of trustworthiness directly affects the amount of trust a customer will have in a particular company, if something negative happens this affects the customers trust in the company and can affect the company as a result e.g. Amazon not delivering a product in the scheduled time, if they consistently fail to deliver the product then the customers will start to lose the confidence they have in Amazon, therefore leading their integrity safer. According to Morgan and Hunt integrity is directly linked to trust.
Some organisations confuse things like repurchasing and think if a consumer buys again then they trust the organisation. This however is not always the case as consumers have to have confidence in the organization and that can be built as the company proved to be reliable and has integrity. Morgan and Hunt.
Trustworthiness can take two dimensions. One is trustworthiness towards the employees while the second is trustworthiness towards the company. A consumer does not have to have the same level of trustworthiness towards the company and its employees as they are mutually exclusive. A consumer might posses a high level of trustworthiness towards employees as a result of the speed and courteous manner in which they deliver their services. On the other hand the customer may have a low level of trustworthiness towards the company due loop holes it sees in its business process which hinders/ limits its employees from making prompt decisions during service delivery.

Company trustworthiness
Consider:
• The critical customer
• interactions with management policies,
• procedures (i.e. an automated telephone call)
• competence,
• benevolence and problem
• solving ability


Employee trustworthiness
Consider:
• The customers critical
• interactions with employees(i.e. at the point of service delivery)
• that build/deplete
• competence,
• benevolence and
In building trust an organization must be reliable and be able to give the consumer what they want. This might mean talking in a language they understand (Disney) rather than corporate talk, relate to an individual at a personal level, what they want, there problems and they are more likely to respond and be willing to engage in the company’s message and trust them more. Secondly the idea to get customers engaging in the company’s product, if they talk about the product they will begin to build up an affinity to the product, a level of trust will develop between them and other consumers with your product being talked about. Bernoff, J, Blogs, Marketing And Trust( 2009)
Many scholars both in the past and recent times have attempted to differentiate the terms trust and trustworthiness in an organisation. In this context, the need for both trust and trust worthiness in an organisation is vital as it enables employees to work together and effectively to be able to meet up with organisations goals as well meeting the requirements of its stakeholders as current trends in the workforce composition is the increase in diversity which involves people from different backgrounds working closely.
One of the major difficulties that have hindered previous research has been a lack of clear differentiation among factors that contributes to trust and its outcomes (Cook & Wall, 1980; Kee & Knox, 1970). Without this clear distinction the difference between trust and trustworthiness would be vague and cannot be fully comprehended by a reader.
The clear distinction between trust and trustworthiness provides a basis that associates people’s general perceptions of a system, organisation, government or even services rendered with their behavioural attitude (2009). The term trustworthiness refers to the “properties through which a trusted entity (whether another person or an institution) serves the interests of the truster, whereas trust reflects the truster’s beliefs, or perceptions, of the entity’s trustworthiness (Chrisanthi et al 2009).
Another difference between these two terminologies is that trustworthiness relies on the cognitive and emotional capacity that individuals bring to bear on their experience of a service, on indicators used to describe aspects of trustworthiness, or on informants, such as the media whilst Trust is the willingness of citizens to rely on a service depends on their judgment or the “willingness of a party to be vulnerable to the actions of another party based n the expectation that the other will perform a particular action important to the trustor, irrespective of the ability to monitor or control that other party” (Mayer & Davies 1995)

References
Mayer, Roger C; Davis, James H; Schoorman, F David An integration model of organizational trust
Academy of Management. The Academy of Management Review; Jul 1995; 20, 3; ABI/INFORM Global
pg. 709
Avgerou, Chrisanthi; Ganzaroli, Andrea; Poulymenakou, Angeliki; Reinhard, Nicolau. Information Technology for Development, 2009, Vol. 15 Issue 2, p133-148, 16p, 1 color; DOI: 10.1002/itdj.20120; (AN 37351958)